Coronavirus live news: WHO warns 2m could die before vaccine; Victoria’s health minister quits | World news

Welcome to our live coronavirus coverage.

Here are some of the main developments from the last 24 hours:

• Jenny Mikakos, health minister in the Australian state of Victoria, has resigned in the wake of an inquiry into the decision to use private contractors to guard hotel quarantine facilities. Poor infection control procedures in the hotels, which are compulsory for returned international travellers, sparked a second wave of the virus since June. Other Australian states and territories used Australian Defence Force staff and police to monitor their hotel quarantine programs, raising questions about why Victoria didn’t do the same.
• Meanwhile Victoria recorded another day of low new case numbers on Friday, with 12 cases and one death overnight. The numbers add to hope that the state is on track to lift tough restrictions, including a curfew, by 26 October.
• The global death toll from Covid-19 could double to 2m before a successful vaccine is widely used, and could be even higher without concerted action to curb the pandemic, an official at the World Health Organization says.
• The number of confirmed Covid cases in the US has passed 7m. It means it took the US less than one month to jump another 1m cases, with 6m recorded on 31 August. Earlier this week, the US surpassed 200,000 deaths.
• The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has addressed the 75th UN general assembly, praising it for establishing an inquiry into the global response to coronavirus and saying: “There is also a clear mandate to identify the zoonotic source of the Covid-19 virus and how it was transmitted to humans.
• The UK’s University and College Union said face-to-face teaching at universities should be halted until the government fixes test-and-trace failures and curbs the spread of Covid. It follows hundreds of students in Manchester being told to self-isolate on Friday after 127 tested positive.
• Rio de Janeiro’s carnival has been postponed for the first time in 100 years, with the death toll in Brazil rising to 140,537. Brazil has the second-worst death toll worldwide with 139,000, and the third-most cases, with 4.6 million.